


Experiments in Flight

by Lelek



Series: Days and Hours [2]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-22
Updated: 2012-04-22
Packaged: 2017-11-04 02:27:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/388672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lelek/pseuds/Lelek
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>They run away from the world sometimes.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Experiments in Flight

They practice eloping one day.

-

Sherlock is deconstructing the DVD player when John stumbles down the stairs at two minutes past eleven. Had John woken up sooner, Sherlock would have felt no need to entertain himself with the DVD player, but John at times displays an exasperating ability to have what he refers to as "lie-ins" when there's no case on and Sherlock doesn't do anything to wake him at a more convenient hour.

John stares for a long moment, obviously considering his options. Should he be angry, or long-suffering, or amused? Or should he just ignore it and act like there aren't bits of metal and screws all over the sitting room floor? Sherlock can hear the possibilities running through John's mind as clearly as if John were speaking his thoughts aloud. He's also decided what John will settle on when John speaks and surprises him.

"Let's go out somewhere."

It's unexpected, and there's nothing Sherlock enjoys quite so much as a challenge. He spends a few seconds working out the why, then smiles and does him one better.

"Have you ever been to Paris?"

There's no point doing something if you aren't going to do it completely. He's always found it particularly irksome to only do things halfway.

-

Theirs is not a proper love story.

-

They check into a hotel room with a view and buy meals they can't really afford and drink an obscene amount of good wine. In their own strange way they're speaking of love, in subtle code and brilliant, shifting innuendo, because they're in Paris and it seems like the right thing to do.

That night they have sex for the first time and, as Sherlock's _longcoolgraceful_ fingers find their way under John's shirt, and his _hotslicksmooth_ mouth slides across John's collarbone, John realises that he understands. With Sherlock there are always countless words between words, filling the silences with meaning, and John has lived at Baker Street long enough that he's begun to hear them.

It's all just the next logical step in the dance that began the day they met.

-

Nothing has changed.

-

Their return to London is as abrupt as their departure. Mrs Hudson has left the broken DVD player in the sitting room, no doubt in order to protest the implication that she's their housekeeper, and everything is as it was.

Lestrade calls with a case shortly after tea and that's all it takes to send them careening off on another adventure.

They don't talk about what happened.

It was only practice, after all.

-

Everything has changed.

-

At first, Sherlock dreads the possibility that they will have to discuss it (them, whatever they've become), and it's strange in a way that is not entirely unpleasant to be part of an us. He's never been an us before. But as two days pass and John doesn't bring it up, he starts to think that perhaps he is going to simply pretend it never happened, an eventuality that Sherlock had previously acknowledged and subsequently rejected as absurd.

But the night they wrap up their latest case, laughing madly in the foyer and using the stair rail to keep themselves upright because they haven't slept since Paris and delirium is surely setting in, John looks up at him and then pulls him down into a kiss. One of them has a cut on his mouth, but Sherlock isn't sure in that moment which one of them it is because the kiss is _hotsaltybeautiful_ and so perfect it aches.

That is the night when they stop sleeping alone.

-

They elope again, just because.

-

John has known more or less where things were going with them since the first time they kissed, but it was in Paris that it became a sure thing. There's a new sort of normal between them, both like and unlike the way it was before, and he knows he ought to be concerned about the fact that he can't imagine living any other way.

Perhaps it is a sign of how far they've come when Sherlock looks at him just right in the dull grey light of an ungodly early hour and all he asks is, "Where are we going this time, then?"

Their second trip is less of an adventure. They go to the other side of London and get a hotel room under an assumed name and spend fifty-six hours locked away from the world. There's nowhere to go, not really, and the illusion of having escaped their real life (fantastic as that real life may be) would be broken if they ran into someone they knew, so they order room service and watch crap telly and stay in bed all day.

They don't leave the room until checkout.

-

It's never been a secret.

-

Sherlock is undecided as to why they aren't more open about the way their relationship has changed. He certainly isn't ashamed of it, and he's never been given reason to suspect that John is, either. Perhaps it's simply that neither of them are particularly open people. Everyone in London's thought they were sleeping together since day one, anyway.

But it's not a secret. Not really. It can't be with the way John hasn't gone out with anyone else since even before that day on the sofa, not to mention the way Sherlock sometimes (more often than he'll ever say) forgets himself and looks at John with what for him is undisguised adoration. Although he would be willing to admit that his version of undisguised adoration might not seem all that adoring to the typical observer because the typical observer is an idiot.

So, no, it's not a secret. They simply don't discuss it with others because they are a unit, an _us_ , and no one else matters. And if bits and pieces, like their habit of disappearing together for days at a time, have become secrets, that's fine, too.

As far as Sherlock has noted, sharing secrets is just one of those things couples do.

-

The third practice run lands them in Dublin.

-

John isn't sure what possessed them to go to Ireland in the dead of winter, but that seems to be exactly what they've done. It's cold and wet and there's no reason for them to be there, but they check into a hotel, and run a bath, and the slide of Sherlock's _softsmoothlovely_ skin across his is enough to make him forget the chill.

Sometimes John thinks about what they're doing, the way they take little sabbaticals from reality, and he wonders just what they're preparing for. They're both too tied to London to ever go away for good, and he can't imagine the circumstances that would inspire them to try, but there is something dreamlike and wonderful about pretending, so ultimately it's not that important.

But sometimes, just sometimes, when he buries his face in Sherlock's hair and cuddles him close, he lets himself fantasise about what it would be like to say to hell with it all. To start running one day and never stop.

It'll never happen, he's sure, but it's a nice thought.

-

Life goes on.

-

There are nights, when Sherlock is _awakeawakeawake_ and dreading the thought of sleep, that he spends studying John. He mentally catalogues every change in expression, every low sound, every shifting muscle, committing it all to memory so he'll be able to recall it later, should the need arise. He doesn't like to consider the situation that might necessitate such a thing, but it's good to be prepared.

He tries not to be too paranoid around John, because he knows John doesn't like it, but having spent most of his life thinking ten steps ahead, it's verging on impossible to shut it off. Those nights are becoming less frequent as time passes, though, and he has begun to tentatively hope that the day will come when he will simply be able to sleep.

It's a strange thing, hope. Sherlock isn't sure he ever allowed himself to experience it before.

But even the sleepless nights are changing, softening into something less miserable. Nights not of agonising slowness, but rather quiet and calm and contentment, lying in bed under the warm weight of John's arm.

And there are some nights, nights he has never even considered mentioning, when he watches John sleep and thinks about eloping and promises them both that one day they'll do it for real.

-

All of these things are true.


End file.
